PITTSBURGH — It is a huge year for the city of Pittsburgh, and with that comes a required focus on safety and security.
The NFL Draft is expected to be the largest event in the city’s history, but the banner year begins this weekend with the big St. Patrick’s Day parade, one of the oldest and largest in the country.
“I’m fully comfortable and confident that we’re ready,” said newly confirmed Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams in a sit-down interview with Channel 11. “We’re doing threat analysis all the time.”
Williams said his office is laser-focused on security ahead of the parade, NFL Draft, Pittsburgh Marathon and Fourth of July celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary.
Each of those events will bring large crowds. The stakes are high, and given the current climate, officials are on high alert.
“We have some things that have recently happened that will make us think in some different ways,” Williams said, acknowledging the impact of the war in Iran.
“What are you doing in your role, what conversations are you all having to make sure you’re ready for any threats or any violence that unfortunately could come?” asked Investigative Reporter Jatara McGee.
“We rally quickly and start having discussions, and to your question, we always analyze these events and what are the ways that we have to properly staff and resource so that we can have a safe and uneventful, as much as we’re able, type of event,” he said.
Williams said the O’Connor administration is meeting daily and having ongoing conversations to make sure the city is prepared for the known and the unknown. Those preparations include preparing for possible disasters, natural or manmade.
“We don’t have any specific intel driving decisions, but we do think holistically of what the potentials could be,” he said. “I think every city should be doing that, especially major cities. When you’re hosting events like this, it’s always part of the conversation.”
When it comes to the NFL Draft, Williams would not go into specifics about security but confirmed the city will use “layers of physical security infrastructure” to help keep crowds safe. That will likely include using vehicles or barriers to block pathways to pedestrians in the case of someone using a vehicle as a weapon.
Williams said Pittsburgh will be ready. He credited the prior administration’s detailed planning and the NFL.
“The NFL is very good at this. They do it every year, so it is a well-oiled machine, but they’re drop setting that into Pittsburgh,” Williams said.
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